With the title in hand, Vincent Kompany needs to play some youngsters against Gladbach and Hoffenheim.
Over the weekend, Bayern Munich celebrated another Bundesliga title after Bayer Leverkusen failed to earn a crucial victory. Bayern’s Champions League campaign was cut short in the quarterfinals while the pursuit of the elusive DFB-Pokal ended in the Round of 16.
Vincent Kompany will be pleased with his first season at Bayern. Injuries ran rampant, especially in the backline as Dayot Upamecano, Alphonso Davies, Hiroki Itō, and Kim Min-jae are likely to sit out the remaining two matches. It is abundantly clear that Bayern needs better production and minutes from the bench to compete late into the season.
Luckily, help is already on the way from the academy. Sport Bild reports that Bayern has already called up a young center-back for Bayern’s final two Bundesliga matches (via @iMiaSanMia).
16-year old centre-back Cassiano Kiala made a very good impression in first team training and impressed Vincent Kompany. He’s now a permanent member of the first team in training and could be included in the squad in the final games of the season. Players and staff are raving about the youngster.
For Bayern fans who haven’t heard Kiala’s name yet, here’s a quick scouting report from a recent match against Anderlecht’s U17 squad at Future Cup, hosted by Ajax (via @_TheNextWave_).
Right-footer operating at RCB possesses a skinny frame of relatively decent height-proportionally long limbs. What impressed me most was Cassiano’s eye to provide cute advantages in build-up, usually via patience &/or gestures, with a few close controlled outside boot/toe touch carries to progress also- liked the eye to continue running forward after release following said dribbles. Good volume-could be greater, of stud usage to deftly move ball &/or deceive a forward presser. Actual execution of pass(es) were rarely ‘risky’ but the approach before-hand often made the picture more favourable for his side. Didn’t have an awful lot to do defensively but in general I liked the level of alertness, while showing a mixture of style to step, wait, & drop ~ often quick to close when ball is traveling &/or attacker is back-to-goal, but predominantly preferred the calmer (waiting &/or dropping) approach. Keen to stretch a leg when blocking a ball cross; opposite ways to look- at times showing his long lunge to stop the ball, other times showing the big gap that has been created between his legs. Turning upper body/face when blocking . CK’s 2 most note-worthy defensive interventions were opposite ends of efficient. The first being the positive; 1v1 against a strong #9 in a moment of transition, showing the long stride to cover the space as well as arms to unbalance the attacker, also showing good balance against physical pressure & as having to sharply slow down. The negative was Anderlecht’s 1st goal as he let the eventual goal-scorer get goal-side with relative ease to tap in ~ a real lack of arm usage in this moment.
